Row over Gordon Ramsay prompts second resignation from AA Guide

A senior food inspector with the AA Restaurant Guide has quit following the row over whether a London restaurant owned by Gordon Ramsay should be awarded its most coveted rating.

Sarah Peart, who has been in her post for seven years, said that the "bullying" actions of Roger Wood, the AA's managing director - who overruled his own inspectors to stop the guide from awarding the Petrus restaurant a fifth AA rosette - had undermined the publication's "honesty and integrity".

Miss Peart said that Mr Wood's behaviour had been "appalling" and that she could no longer work for him. Mr Wood's decision to insist that Petrus be given only four rosettes prompted the resignation last week of Simon Wright, the editor of the AA Restaurant Guide.

Petrus, which is co-owned by Mr Ramsay and Marcus Wareing, its chef-patron, had been recommended for five rosettes in this year's guide after visits by several AA inspectors. Mr Wood, a former managing director of British Gas Services, overruled them after he visited Petrus in a private capacity and became embroiled in an argument with staff.

He later described Petrus as an "expensive poseur's restaurant" that was the "least desirable" of all the smart establishments that he had dined in. The AA has publicly stood by its managing director despite calls for his dismissal.

Related Articles

"The man has behaved appallingly," Miss Peart told The Sunday Telegraph. "It's outrageous. He's just behaving like a bully. It devalues and makes what we do meaningless if someone can come in and overrule it with no knowledge and no basis for making that ruling.

"There is a set procedure for awarding these rosettes: somebody making a decision that overrules the normal procedure is damaging to our credibility and integrity."

On Friday the AA promised to review its decision to award only four rosettes to Petrus this year. It is now believed to have upgraded the restaurant to five rosettes.

Mr Wood added in a statement: "It may be that my personal views may have been given undue weight in the decision-making process."